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The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong

by jdhn 8y ago

The biggest change I see from the NA model is that localities don't really have the ability to make their own rules. Seems like this would require a very strong movement at the state level to ever implement something like this.

slivym 8y ago
There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach. Whether or not a tendency to centralize more of their planning/decision making relative to the US counts as "pragmatic" is something many people (myself included) would take issue with. I think the most local level of government capable of dealing with an issue should be the one that deals with the issue.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  That's an inaccurate characterization. The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to varying degrees to county or municipal government. US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.
- gascan 8y ago
  Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries [...] take a much more pragmatic approach. This seems disingenuous. Pushing zoning decisions down from the Fed seems a bit more like the EU pushing down zoning decisions. European countries implement their own rules, US States implement their own rules. Both are about the same size.
andrewla 8y ago
The original blog [1] that much of the content was culled from goes into some more detail here. > Despite the national guidelines, cities aren't completely powerless. They can identify zones where certain rules will be waived to allow higher densities, or alternately, establish certain criteria like a minimum quantity of green spaces on each lot, minimum setbacks, etc... But the basic rules of zoning are still defined by the national government. And in general it sounds like the types of zones is nationally mandated, but which areas are assigned which zones are a local decision, unless I'm not understanding the idea here. [1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

by jdhn 8y ago

slivym 8y ago

There's literally no chance of that happening in the US for fundamentally philosophical reasons. Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>whereas European countries and Japan take a much more pragmatic approach. Whether or not a tendency to centralize more of their planning/decision making relative to the US counts as "pragmatic" is something many people (myself included) would take issue with. I think the most local level of government capable of dealing with an issue should be the one that deals with the issue.
Spooky23 8y ago
That's an inaccurate characterization. The Federal government has a minimal direct impact on civil administration in populated areas and always has. Land use, code enforcement, permitting, police and similar functions are all state responsibilities that are delegated to varying degrees to county or municipal government. US States are also nominally sovereign. It's less philosophy and more legal.
gascan 8y ago
Politically the US has a very strong preference for pushing decisions down to the lowest level they can, whereas European countries [...] take a much more pragmatic approach. This seems disingenuous. Pushing zoning decisions down from the Fed seems a bit more like the EU pushing down zoning decisions. European countries implement their own rules, US States implement their own rules. Both are about the same size.

andrewla 8y ago

The original blog [1] that much of the content was culled from goes into some more detail here. > Despite the national guidelines, cities aren't completely powerless. They can identify zones where certain rules will be waived to allow higher densities, or alternately, establish certain criteria like a minimum quantity of green spaces on each lot, minimum setbacks, etc... But the basic rules of zoning are still defined by the national government. And in general it sounds like the types of zones is nationally mandated, but which areas are assigned which zones are a local decision, unless I'm not understanding the idea here. [1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html